While holidaying in Las Vegas in 2012 with his friends, Prince Harry was once talked out of getting a tattoo, as depicted in his bombshell memoir, Spare. Prince Harry has recalled the raucous trip and his desire to do something to remember it. In Spare, which was released in January 2023, Harry explained how he wanted to ink something of importance to him.
Prince Harry wrote: “I need something to commemorate this trip, I decided. Something to symbolize my sense of freedom, my sense of carpe diem. For instance…a tattoo? Yes! Just the thing! Maybe on my shoulder? No, too visible. Lower back? No, too…racy. Maybe my foot? Yes. The sole of my foot!”
Commenting on the unusual choice of location for the tattoo, The Duke of Sussex added: “Where the skin had once peeled away. Layers upon layers of symbolism!”
Sharing what he planned to do, the Duke wrote: “Now, what would the tattoo be? I thought and thought. What’s important to me? What’s sacred? Of course — Botswana. I’d seen a tattoo parlour down the block. I hoped they’d have a good atlas, with a clear map of Botswana.”
However, Harry’s friends were set against the idea. He writes: “I went to find Billy the Rock to tell him where we were going. He smiled. No way. My mates backed him up. Absolutely not. In fact, they promised to physically stop me. I was not going to get a tattoo, they said, not on their watch, least of all a foot tattoo of Botswana.
“They promised to hold me down, knock me out, whatever it took. A tattoo is permanent, it’s forever! Their arguments and threats are one of my last clear memories from that evening. I gave in. The tattoo could wait till the next day.”
Instead, Harry writes how they ended up in a club, but he ended up “staring into space” and thinking about how he could have had a tattoo.
Botswana is full of memories for the Prince, for their third date, Harry famously whisked now-wife, Meghan Markle away on a private trip to Botswana, it was there the Duke is said to have realised that Meghan was his soulmate.
Prince Harry has previously said he feels “deeply connected” to Botswana, having visited in the immediate aftermath of Princess Diana’s death. Speaking of the emotional trip, the Duke of Sussex said: “It was a nice place to get away from it all, but now I feel deeply connected to this place and to Africa.”
Botswana clearly means a lot to both Harry and Meghan as when they got engaged in 2017, Prince Harry proposed with a three-stone ring featuring a large centre-cut diamond sourced from Botswana alongside two side stones from his mother’s jewellery collection.